Oklahoma medical marijuana regulation clouds CannaCon

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Medical marijuana is one of the fastest growing industries in Oklahoma. Proof of this was that CannaCon came to the Oklahoma City Convention Center on Thursday and Friday. After a presentation by the state, many in attendance remained unsatisfied due to unanswered questions about the new state regulation.

Many Oklahoma medical marijuana growers are struggling with the way the Oklahoma Department of Health and Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Administration are implementing their seed for sale tracking program. They hired Florida-based Metrc to do the tracking.

About a month ago, a class action lawsuit put implementation on hold.

Viridian Legal Services attorney Ronald Durbin represents approximately 10,000 licensed cannabis companies across Oklahoma. He says implementing Metrc would create a monopoly and that the company would make over $ 12 million in the first year alone.

Durbin continued to raise his problems by saying that many companies are already doing their own seed sales tracking and this new plan will be costly. He also said that no public input was ever sought for the decision.

“We’re not against Metrc,” he said. “This has nothing to do with hostility towards Metrc or a tracking company for sales of seeds. This has to do with how the state and OMMA accepted the program and tried to implement it. What they have done is that they have a program in place that essentially passes all of the costs of the program on to the companies without the companies contributing or providing guidance to the companies. It gives someone a test without teaching them what will be on the test. It is a problem.”

At the conference on Friday, OMMA gave a presentation on new compliance efforts and the implementation of the new seed sales tracking program. Assistant Director of Compliance and Enforcement, Taylor Hartin, would not discuss the class action, to the disappointment of those in attendance.

“I can’t answer any questions about Metrc today as there are litigation pending,” she said from the stage.

Hartin told KFOR that regulation is needed to give patients access to safe and consistently manufactured products.

“People make products that actually hurt and make people sick instead of helping them,” she said. “I don’t want people to smoke pesticides. That should never happen if you are a patient seeking medical marijuana for treatment. So. Regulation is one of the factors that make this possible. I want people to be able to find out if medical marijuana is right for them by having access to consistent products and reliable rules that these product vendors must follow to make sure they stay consistent. “

Marijuana breeder Jon Wahl of Independence Farms in Ardmore, Okla., Agrees with her thinking.

“If Metrc isn’t implemented and we don’t get proper seed sales follow-up from start to finish, there are no checks and balances,” he said. “Marijuana is certainly sold on the black market. I think this has to end. For this to end we need to have some kind of verifiable metric tracking, or seed-to-sale tracking. “

OMMA plans to hire an additional 60 to 70 medical marijuana inspectors by the end of the year, in addition to the 20-25 or so.

Durbin said a hearing for the case was scheduled for June 29.